Just in: Mirga quits Leipzig’s Mahler cycle
OrchestrasLeipzig’s much-vaunted cycle of Mahler symphonies has been hit by the withdrawal of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla next Sunday for health reasons.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra have replaced her in Mahler’s tenth symphony with Robert Treviño, a regular guest conductor in Leipzig.
Message from CBSO: Unfortunately, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla is unwell and has had to withdraw from conducting this week’s performance of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony. We are hugely grateful to Robert Treviño for stepping in to conduct this performance at such short notice.
Trevino is Music Director of the Basque National Orchestra.
Popelka to Jurowski
Mirga to Trevino
Waiting for the next replacements
It doesn’t really matter who conducts the Three Pintos.
But the first scherzo of the 10th is tough to conduct.
Very tough! There are awkward meter changes all over the place, as well as numerous tempo changes.
Trevino was superb in the Birmingham concert of 10 as he was when I saw him in Elgar 1 with the BSO: he is an outstanding musician.
Mahler’s reconstructed 10th has always been problematic, avoided by many conductors, including Lenny.
Finale of the Tenth in Cooke’s reconstruction is the best music ever written
I’ll have to give that another listen. I don’t remember it being that remarkable, but it has been a while since I’ve heard it.
But the flute solo lacks a syncopation at a crucial point, which Mahler would certainly have added.
Aletter:
Finale of the Tenth in Cooke’s reconstruction is the best music never written (by Mahler)
I had a discussion decades ago with Ashkenazy about this. I asked him why he didn’t conduct the 10th. He said, because Mahler didn’t complete it. I then asked him if he conducted Mozart’s Requiem. Yes, he said. Well there is more Mahler in the 10th than Mozart in the Requiem. There was a long silence and then he said- I had better think of another reason!!!!
Indeed! if you went by that rule, no-one would play the Schubert ‘Unfinished’, Bruckner 9, Turandot and plenty other masterpieces…
It might interest you to know that Ashkenazy made a very fine recording of the Rudolf Barshai completion of Mahler 10 in Sydney for the Exton label (same as Canyon Classics). The Barshai isn’t my favorite among the more ‘conjectural’ completion, but some people really like it.
Michael Gielen made a full reversal on the 10th, going from refusing to perform the reconstruction to embracing it. He acknowledged that he didn’t realize just how much Mahler had written until he examined the manuscript, and that he came to understand that Cooke’s intent was to fill in just enough holes so that the score could be performed to give audiences an idea of what Mahler had in mind — hence “performing version” — and that he could have gone farther to fill in the orchestration like others who “completed” the score, but did not.
That seems like some unassailable logic to me, and I appreciate that Gielen was willing to admit that he made his mind up on the 10th without seeing for himself where Mahler left off and Cooke picked up (I suspect that many conductors who refuse to perform the 10th have never examined the score).
And as you note, the Mahler 10 is hardly the only score to be unfinished, where someone else made major contributions. I’m not aware of any conductors who has issues performing the ending of Turandot which Puccini did not write. And though a different situation, I’ve also never understood why the Haas edition of the Bruckner 8 remains so popular when it’s well documented that Haas’ scholarship was garbage and he just inserted his own ideas. Given the clear evidence that the Nowak edition is more faithful and authentic, why is the Haas still used?
Thornhill:
Here’s what Otto Klemperer, a noted Mahler-veteran in music and in life told Peter Heyworth:
PH: What about Deryck Cooke’s realisation of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony?
OK: A scandal. Mahler told his wife to burn the sketches in the event of his death. She didn’t do so. Apart from the Adagio, wich I have conducted, there is nothing more than sketches, sometimes only a single line of a few notes. When I heard that a man called Cooke had completed them, I asked for a score. It’s impossible. I mean, if Cooke were a second Mahler, then it might be all right.
Peter Heyworth, Conversations with Klemperer, Mahler and the start of a Career, page 36. faber and faber, 1973.
On a personal note, I wonder if old Klemp even knew the charming Purgatorio…
It´s my favourite Mahler Symphony,apart from the 9th and the Lied….As Riccardo Chailly,one of the great champions of the Cooke completion said:I don´t care by whom it is.It´s great music.
Good news, bad news:
Congratulations, you’re playing in the Leipzig Mahler festival … Mahler’s Tenth.
Insulting? Patronizing? Window dressing?
No wonder Mirga became ill.
The CBSO has a well known connection with Mahler 10 going back to Sir Simon Rattle’s days there.
It is good to see that recognised in Leipzig.
No sad loss. She won’t be missed much in Birmingham.
She’s cancelled more concerts in Birmingham than she’s actually conducted.
She never was, is, or will be up to the same standard as her 3 predecessors in Birmingham.
…. or indeed her successor. Kazuki Yamada is a terrific conductor who already has an extraordinary rapport with the orchestra. In fairness, Nelsons used to cancel quite often too.
why just answer me why
I recall attending (c. 1980) a panel discussion about Mahler featuring the University of Iowa conductor James Dixon as (the one and only) panelist.
When asked about Deryck Cooke’s completion of the Mahler 10th he could not contain his disgust for it.
“Appalling” and “disgrace” were used.
The biggest problem is that the last movement doesn’t sound like Mahler, much too conservative.
. . . which is one big reason why I like the Samale/Mazzuca version. They really address the back half of the final movement – and not just let it sit there all lump like; prostrate in overall feeling. They really ‘do something’ with it. They also have, by far, the best and most convincing ending to the first scherzo (second movement).
Good,concerning her absolute lack of sense for structure and architecture. I remember only too well her Brahms 3 which absolutely fell apart into unrelated episodes.
She should be black listed she has cancelled more concerts that I have booked for than any other conductor
Disgusted to be honest every concert should have a might not attend warning
The greatest musicians cancel. Part of the mystique. No good unless you cancel. Mirga is a mirage it seems…
Can’t she do what ABBA did recently on their world tour? Just send in a hologram of her conducting virtual Mahler to avoid disappointing those Leipzig fans. Come on you fusty classical lot, get in with the techno scene….. you know it makes Meta sense.
I don’t think anyone is disappointed when she doesn’t turn up. Has she even done the tenth before?
Why stop there? They could try recreating Mahler himself as a hologram and have him conduct!